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Park shed his mask, and immediately began feeling short of air. The pilot chuckled at his distress. “How well do you do in hot, sticky weather down by the sea, smart boy?” Park growled.
“That smelly soup? I hate it,” Waipaljkoon said. Park laughed in turn. The pilot glared, then said grudgingly, “All right, you made your point.”
They landed at a town called Viiljkabamba for the night. Park tried to phone Kuurikwiljor to tell her where he was. After assorted clicks and pops, the call went through. When someone answered it, though, the co
They flew on the next morning. Below them, foliage grew ever more exuberant; jungle stretched ahead as far as the eye could see. To Allister Park, viewing it from above, it might have been a great green ocean. Only an occasional cleared patch or the glint of sunlight off a pond or river spoiled the illusion.
“How do you find your way when everything looks alike?” Park asked Waipaljkoon. For all he could tell, they might have been flying in circles.
“By the blessed sun, of course, and the lodestone.” The pilot tapped a compass on the instrument panel. In the profusion of other dials, Park had not noticed it. He felt foolish until Waipaljkoon went on, “And by keeping track of my air speed and guessing whether the wind is with or against me, and by a good deal of luck.”
“He hasn’t crashed yet,” Ankowaljuu said jovially, slapping the pilot on the back.
Eric Dunedin intoned, “Patjam kuutiin — the world changes,” in a voice so sepulchral that everyone stared at him, the two Tawantiinsuujans in surprise, Park in admiration. Monkey-face gri
He’d drunk aka with breakfast at Viiljkabamba. Now it began to have its revenge. He fidgeted in his chair. Soon fidgeting did not help. “How do I make water here?” he asked.
Waipaljkoon handed him a stoppered jug. “Make sure you put the plug back in tightly,” the pilot warned, “in case we hit choppy air.” Though relieved when he gave back the jug, Park reflected that Tawantiinsuuju still had a lot to learn about proper airline service.
The aka also left Park sleepy. He was wondering if he could doze in his uncomfortable seat when the airwain lurched in the air. “What the-” he began, while Ankowaljuu and Dunedin made similar dismayed noises.
Waipaljkoon, red-brown face grim, pointed wordlessly to the starboard engine. The steam plants’ exhaust usually scrawled a big vapor trail across the sky. Now, though, vapor was spurting from several places in the engine housing where it did not belong. Park watched the spin of the three-bladed wooden propellor slow, stop.
“Boiler tubes must have failed,” the pilot said.
The jungle, all of a sudden, seemed terribly far below and much too close, both at the same time. No, it was closer — the airwain was losing altitude. Park was glad he’d used the jug not long before. “Are we going to hit the ground hard?” he asked, not knowing how to say “crash” in Ketjwa.
Waipaljkoon understood him. “Unless we find a town or a clearing soon,” he said. “We can’t fly long with just one motor, that’s certain.”
The next few minutes were among the worst of Allister Park’s life. The slow descent of the airwain only gave him more time to think about what would happen at its end. The lower they got, the hotter it grew. Park would have been sweating just as hard, though, had the engine quit during their frigid passage over the Antiis.
Just as he was wondering when some high treetop would snag their landing gear and flip them into the forest, Eric Dunedin pointed off to the left. “Isn’t that a break in the trees?”
It was. Waipaljkoon fiddled with the controls. To Park’s amazement, the airwain climbed a little. “Now that I have somewhere definite to go, I can give my one engine full power,” the pilot explained. “Before, I had to save some to make sure it didn’t fail too, before we had a place to land.”
All four men cheered when the clearing proved to hold not only cultivated fields but also, snug against the riverbank, a small town. Farmers in the fields gaped up at the airwain. Park wondered if they’d ever seen one up close before.
“I’m going to set it down,” Waipaljkoon said. “Hang on tight, and pray Patjakamak is watching us.”
Cornstalks swished and rattled against the wings as the airwain bumped to a stop. Park’s teeth clicked together several times, but he’d been braced for worse. “Thank you, Waipaljkoon,” Dunedin said. That, Park thought, about summed it up.
People came rushing toward the airwain from the fields and from the town. “Probably the most exciting thing that’s happened in years,” Ankowaljuu said drily. “I wonder how many people here speak Ketjwa.”
The locals were Skrellings, of course, but with rounder faces and flatter features than the men from the mountains. Men and women alike wore only loincloths. In the moist heat of the jungle, Park could hardly blame them. “Rude to stare, Eric,” he murmured, “though I own she’s worth staring at.” He wondered if Kuurikwiljor would forgive him for not showing up.
Ankowaljuu was sitting closest to the door. He opened it, climbed out onto the wing. “What’s the name of this town?” he called.
Someone understood him, for an answer came back: “Iipiisjuuna.”
“Well, good people of Iipiisjuuna, I am tukuuii riikook to Maita Kapak” (they all shaded their eyes; back of beyond or no, this was still Tawantiinsuuju) “the Son of the Sun. I need your help in furthering the travels of this man here, Judge Ib Scoglund of the International Court.” He beckoned to Park.
From the way the locals gabbled when he came out, Park was sure sandy-haired white men did not come to Iipiisjuuna every day. “Hello,” he said in Ketjwa, and waved, as if he were making a speech on a stump.
A fat man with a large scar on his belly and streaks of gray in his hair (which looked, Park thought irreverently, as if it had been cut under a bowl and then soaked in Vaseline) pushed through to the front of the crowd. “What sort of help do you need?” he demanded in a deep, important-sounding voice. “Tukuuii riikook or no, sir, I, Mankoo, am chief at Iipiisjuuna.”
“Of course,” Ankowaljuu agreed — wisely, Park thought, for Mankoo reminded him of a red-ski
Ankowaljuu went on: “If you have a mechanic who can fix our airwain engine, we will be on our way very quickly.”
“We have no steam engines here, save on a couple of riverboats,” Mankoo said. Park’s heart sank. Of all the places he did not care to be stranded, Iipiisjuuna ranked high on the list. Mankoo was saying, “-roads hereabouts aren’t good enough for them. But I will have our blacksmith look at it, if you like.”
“You are very kind,” Ankowaljuu said, wincing almost imperceptibly. “If, Patjakamak prevent it, your smith is unable to make the repairs, how would you suggest that we go on our way northwards? We must, to stop the war that has broken out between the Son of the Sun and the Sun-deniers of the Dar al-Harb.”
The crowd muttered to itself. Suddenly suspicious no longer, Mankoo said, “Word of this war has not reached us. The wirecaller lines are down again, somewhere in the jungle.”
Hell, Park thought. There went another chance for calling Kuurikwiljor — and it was getting late for excuses. After this, it would be awfully late.
Mankoo went on, “I fought the Sun-deniers a generation ago. I know what war is like. Anything to stop it is worth doing.” He rubbed his scar, then turned and shouted at the fellow next to him in the local tongue. The man dashed away. Mankoo returned to Ketjwa: “He will fetch the smith.”